


you are my haven

by Anonymous



Category: FBI (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 12:55:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Post-episode 1x22.





	you are my haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



> Post-episode 1x22.

It's awkward, somehow. It had seemed a great idea when he'd said it, and he wouldn't exactly be lying if he admitted that he'd wanted to for a while, but now it's happening it's like the world's worst first date, the kind where nothing works out and there's nothing to say and at the end of the night you just awkwardly agree to be friends and then avoid each other until you lose touch.

He's really determined to turn it around, but he's not sure how; for all his offers of listening, for all Maggie's offers to listen, they haven't ever really talked much about themselves. At least, not about the kinds of things that they can talk about in a restaurant without checking over their shoulders to make sure nobody's listening. Maggie seems tense, as well, though he can't be sure he's not just looking for something that isn't there after the last few days; reading the set of her shoulders as her consciously managing her posture, the narrowing of her eyes as an attempt to hold back something more telling, or turning of the menu around in her hands as restless fidgeting.

"You order for me, I'm going to the bathroom," she says, and he wonders if this was something that only worked at work, when the space between them is filled with a case that demands their focus, when they themselves are secondary to getting the job done.

He sighs and leans back in the chair; it's wooden and not designed to let someone sink into it, but he tries anyway; the back digs in between his shoulders and it anchors him, somehow, as if it's a reminder that this is real and he doesn't have to put up a facade, not for Maggie.

"Can we actually get this to go?" he asks. The advantage of having a chosen a place he knows, where they know him, is that they say yes. By the time Maggie comes back, he has two bags filled with cardboard bowls and wooden forks; he'd asked for double his usual plus a couple of sandwiches, and enough kanafeh to last a week of late night refuelling, and he suspects there's extra somewhere. 

He knows he's made the right call when Maggie's close enough for him to see that her eyes are redder around the edges, her mouth drawn down just enough to hint that she's still holding back. 

"Your place or mine?" he says as he holds up a bag. 

"Yours," she says, and takes the bag. "I mean, if that's okay. I just..."

"Yeah," he says. "We can walk, if you want."

She nods once, blinking, and he smiles his goodbyes to the waiter as he follows Maggie out.

 

She starts burrowing through the bag and he stops her by putting a hand on her arm. "Here," he says, and hold out a bowl and fork from the one he's carrying. "That one's dessert." She shuffles the handles down onto her arm and takes the bowl, sniffs at it. 

"What is it?"

"It's koshary," he says, and it's different to all the other times he's had to explain something, because he doesn't have to edit himself. "Ate it all the time when I was undercover." And Maggie gets what that means, all the things it's code for - easy to eat, easy to make, something normal, something filling and nutritious, something that made sense for him that he could keep from his real identity - and he knows this just because she lifts the lid and digs in, then offers him the bowl.

"It's good," she says, and that means they're good. He takes a forkful, and another, and the only talking he does after that is to give directions, though he's fairly sure Maggie doesn't need them; it's just his preferred route, subtly checking the area and taking up enough time to separate work from not-work.

 

"Make yourself at home," he says, when he lets Maggie in. She settles on a sofa and is instantly at ease in a way she wasn't at the restaurant, a way that he hasn't really seen in her before. For a moment he pictures her more relaxed, perhaps curling up with her feet on the cushions, a glass of wine in her hand and her arms resting on her knees, but it doesn't track and he shakes his head to clear it. He can't even imagine what she's going through; she wouldn't be so unguarded here, and the fact that she has relaxed at all seems huge in context. She took her shoes off at the door when he did, she is leaning back in the sofa, letting it take her weight instead of being poised, and he can almost feel the alertness fall away. 

He doesn't ask if she's still hungry, just brings her a glass of water and then spreads the boxes out on the table. There's pastries on top of what he ordered, and Maggie takes one, holds it between her hands as if she's using it to warm them.

"Are you cold?"

"No," she says. He picks up the remote and adjusts the thermostat anyway, bumping it up a few degrees, just enough that the heating kicks in and the warmer air is noticeable. "I just... this time it's over, you know? For real."

"Yeah," he says. He can't think of anything else to say and that's when he realises he doesn't have to speak at all. Maggie nibbles at the pastry and then at a sandwich, and he just listens to her saying nothing while he pushes chickpeas around with his fork, not in case she starts talking, but because tomorrow she'll be offered counselling and desk duty if she doesn't take it, and he can give her not having to talk about it. 

"Do you have beer?" she says, when he's about at the point of wondering whether he should be putting leftovers in the fridge. "Or wine. But beer's good."

"Sure. You up for dessert as well?"

She nods, and starts picking up boxes.

He waves her off. "I got it." She sinks back, then, becoming almost languid, and he can see it, almost. "Hey, if you want something harder, I don't mind if you stay over."

She nods, and by the time he's brought back the brandy, glasses, and a box of kanafeh, she's started to cry. He hesitates, but she doesn't stop him when he reaches out to her, when he rubs her back, his palm able to distinguish her spine even through her jacket; instead she almost seems to crumple, and he holds her as she leans on his chest.


End file.
